European Stars and Stripes (Newspaper) - July 25, 1994, Darmstadt, Hesse Monday july 25, 1994 j commentary i the stars and stripes Page 13 Ellen Goodman on care hot seat Over the years Congress has developed a Nasty habit of passing Laws that apply to everyone except the people who pass them. To this Day they uphold a double Standard that frees them from their own Laws about workplace safety and discrimination. And this summer if no one notices they May devise a health care policy that leaves them equally untouched. Someone has to Tell these folks that what a Good for the governed is Good for the governors. In that spirit allow me then to present a modest proposal. As the arcane and incomprehensible debate about health care Reform comes within the Normal Range of human hearing the biggest difference to emerge is Between those who want health care to cover every american sooner and those who want it to cover most americans sooner or later. In the Senate especially this has become a struggle Between a universalist so and right now senators who favor covering about 95 percent of us have won the coveted political title of �?omoderate.�?�. The five percent difference sounds like a Small Compromise. It sounds smaller for example than the number it represents 15 million americans. None of these people of course Are senators. In Case you Haven to noticed members of Congress already have Universal health coverage. One Hundred percent of the 100 senators Are eligible to join the Federal health care Alliance which allows them to choose Between plans and doctors with no exclusion for pre existing conditions. Only one Reform proposal a that of sen. Ted Kennedy of Massachusetts a offers Congress plan As one of our choices. Under my proposal however senators who Are willing to Settle for the 95 percent solution for us must also apply it to themselves. Before voting against a Universal plan they will be required to present the names of five colleagues sex con amp in is Al Kemt Nell fk0tecter than you ponders the health care needs of the great unwashed. Aptly 5 percent a who will immediately lose coverage. Consider the health care profile of the Senate. If this High risk Hundred were looking for an insurer of their own they a be rejected faster than the american bungee jumping association. As it is now the Senate consists of 94 men and six women with an average age of 58. The majority Are lawyers by training who Lead a sedentary work life punctuated by months spent in the ultimate Type a activity running for office. There Are enough pre existing conditions among this cohort group to fill a medical text. We done to know now Many Are staying in their jobs because they done to want to lose their health insurance. Faced with the requirement of naming names senators could eliminate their colleagues by age they could write off the five oldest members of the Senate beginning with the 91-year-old Strom Thurmond and the quartet a Howell Heflin William Roth James Exon Jesse Helms a born in 1921. The senators could also exclude cohorts by disease. They could go Over the quota by choosing senators with a history of heart ailments. Or they could disqualify the quintet a including the Leader of the Clinton opposition Bob Dole a whose a pre existing conditions is prostate cancer. The Senate like the country has its share of families that would be virtually uninsurable Florida a Connie Mack runs Down his family s history this Way he a had skin cancer his daughters had cervical cancer his wife and Mother have both had breast cancer. Is there a senator who is willing to Cut the Macks off the Rolls of course there Are other candidates. Delaware a Joe Biden had an aneurysm. Pennsylvania a Arlen Specter had an awfully pricy brain tumor. Maybe its easier to triage by lifestyle. Kentucky a Wendell Ford still smokes Ohio a John Glenn still flies Small planes. Oregon a Bob Packwood a no lunging at women lunge itis is not a pre existing condition a admitted a problem with alcohol. Those Are the easy Calls. If this proposal sounds much too personal that a the Point. A senator who can to Cut five colleagues face to face be cutting 15 million constituents anonymously. Health care is about real people. The five percent difference Isnit going to come from the Rich a surely not the Senate millionaires club a or from the poor or very old. It will come from the working class and those who Are or could be Between jobs. Over a lifetime a whole lot of americans will pass through that tiny percentage. The truth is that Well either get Universal coverage or Universal insecurity. This is the time when the fully covered Congress with its cushy health plan paid largely by its employers a us a should consider the Golden Rule of re election. Do unto others a All others a As you have already done unto yourselves. A a c Boston Globo am a in la when i was a Little girl i was enamoured of the comic strip Brenda Starr. Brenda was Beautiful a world traveler with masses of gracefully waving red hair and stars where her pupils ought to be. She had a mysterious Boyfriend with a Black Eye Patch named Basil St. John and she never wore the same gown twice. Brenda was a reporter. This was my introduction to the newspaper business. Well my own hair stayed Brown reporter or no reporter. And impressionable Young people Are still being fooled by popular culture into thinking that being a newspaper reporter is a glamorous occupation instead of a business in which the Best you can Hope for is steady work and All the stationery supplies you can fit in your purse. That is at Large newspapers. At some Small ones i hear that you have to share a pen with the Guy at the next desk no teen Ager running a school newspaper should look at Nick Nolte and Julia Roberts playing competing reporters in the new movie i love trouble and think to herself a now that a what i want to contrary to what you a imagine from this movie newspaper reporting is not a Cross Between espionage and dating and we female reporters rarely Wear four Inch heels to a train wreck. It contrary to what you a imagine from this movie after almost 25 years in the newspaper business i can Tell you thata never have 1 seen newspaper columnist parked outside this building enthusiastically kissing a blonde in a red convertible i have however seen Russell Baker looking fondly at his wife. A never have i fallen from a catwalk under sniper fire and managed to grab the All important microfilm right before 1 plunged to what looks like certain death i have More than once gotten nipped by the closing doors of the subway and in be been known to lose my notes. A never has the subject of a Story tried to mow me Down in a death car outside a Steakhouse. I was once spoken to sternly about a dinner Bill on my expense account but the encounter never included guns. This would not be Worth mentioning if Many impressionable Young people did not get their first impressions of the newspaper business from the movies. A generation ago the movie was All the presidents men. It did not make reporting look unreasonably Glam except to the extent that putting Robert Redford in a role could make being a Trappist Monk look Glam. But it did give the distinct impression that if you worked hard and were a tenacious reporter you could bring Down the president of the United states. A a thus it was a rude Awakening when Many of its Young aficionados found themselves covering proposals for solid waste treatment plants at zoning Board meetings. The Best movie Ever made about being a newspaper reporter was in 1940, its called his girl Friday and it Anna Quindlen captures the kind of newsrooms we worked in before carpets and cubicles and computers. The reporters yell a Gimme the desk a into the phone. When they file one says a murderer put up a desperate struggle and another says he offered no resistance. Its not an action movie unless you count the smart Mouths on Hildy Johnson and Walter. Bums played by Rosalind Russell and Cary Grant. A a journalist a Hildy says to no one in particular in the crowded pressroom at the criminal courts building Quot where the Guys complain that the noise of the Gallows being tested is interfering with their work a now what does that mean peeking through keyholes chasing after fire engines waking people up in the Middle of the night to ask them if hitlers going to Start another War a. The whole Point of the movie is that Hildy is going to leave the newsroom for the straight life and is lured into one last assignment. By the end of the Day the business exhilarating and tedious Crummy and wonderful has sucked her Back in and the pert Little hat she has been wearing has been pushed Forward adjusted and mashed so it looks pretty much like a Fedora. A because of you i remember How much i loved new papering a says Nick Nolte staring into Julia Roberts eyes. Because of news Hildy remembers. When she hears Bells she leaps to her feet and not because of some big Blond Guy. A i just thought it might be a Good fire that Sall a she says. No espionage. No car chases. Just a Good fire. C now York times
